Patience
by Blue Moons and Pink Suns
Summary: "We've all done things. We've all done horrible, terrible things, but we move on, we get stronger, and before you know it we'll be okay again." Inspired by the promos for 5x02. Spoilers for season 4 and the premiere. Caryl.
1. Forgiveness

**AN: So yeah. The inspiration fairy finally struck. I hope you like it! I'm considering doing a second chapter, we'll see.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own, write for, or work for AMC or TWD.**

**-/-/-/-**

There had been no words, when it had happened.

Even now, just thinking about it left him feeling like his heart was going to swell right out of his chest. She had come back, had somehow survived, had _saved_ them.

How was something so wonderful even possible? Good things didn't happen for them, never had.

But even as he thought this, he knew it wasn't true. He had found her once before when he thought she was gone for sure, and here _she_ had found _him_.

Even now, as they walked side by side, his arm occasionally bumping against hers, they didn't speak. The weight of questions unanswered was too heavy to be lifted among others, too oppressing to try and break with so many watching eyes.

His throat burned as he remembered how her arms had wrapped around him, how her small, deadly hands had felt wrapped up in his hair.

No, he couldn't talk to her here, not when he was barely keeping it together just thinking of her. He'd had enough crying for one day.

His hand brushed hers, and as he glanced up to remind himself for the hundredth, thousandth, _millionth_ time that she was here, her fingers tangled with his. Her eyes stayed glued on the path ahead, but that familiar twinkle was there in the baby blues, and he felt his mouth quirk despite himself, his heart already speeding up again in awe of this woman.

Goddamn if she wouldn't be the end of him.

**-/-/-/-**

It was Glenn and Maggie who had woken them for second watch.

The couple's weary eyes betrayed a lack of sleep, for so many different causes other than watch, and a benevolent part of him hoped smally that at least one of them was good.

Glenn's shit-eating grin was something he knew well, well enough to growl out a "Shut up" as Carol grasped his hand and stood. Maggie winked at her as she unbuckled her trusty Glock from her belt to set it down by the sleeping bags.

Carol had the goodness to roll her eyes, but he saw the edge of a grin starting at the corner of her mouth as she tucked her little pistol into her waistband.

Her hair glinted silver in the light of the crescent moon, stars unimaginable above their heads. She swayed as she moved to the tree trunk, and he noticed with a drop of worry that she had lost enough weight to punch a new hole in her belt.

What had she been through out there, alone? She had found Ty and Judith eventually, obviously, but what of before? What had she suffered through before?

He swallowed hard as she leaned a hand against the tree to lower herself down with a muted grunt, breathed deep and rolled her shoulders.

_Screw around?_

_Pfft. I'll go down first._

_Even better._

His hands itched, and he wanted so bad to finish what he had started that night.

And so he plopped down and motioned towards the dirt in front of him.

"C'mon. Don't be stubborn," he muttered, trying in vain to kill the butterflies threatening to bring up his meager dinner.

She sighed in surrender, then crawled over in front of him so he could work his magic.

"'S that damn kickback," she grumbled in what he could only describe as childlike annoyance. He chuckled at her.

"You save our lives on what I'm gonna guess to be less than an hour of sleep, with less than a clip of bullets, and your biggest problem is a sore shoulder. I'd call that a success," he answered lightly, working his knuckles into her shoulders that seemed stripped of any softness that had once been there. She was coiled up like a damn jack-in-the-box, and again he couldn't tamp down that something worse than he had interpreted had happened out there. Something she hadn't shared yet.

She didn't answer him, just breathed deep as he hit a knot at the nape of her neck.

They sat in silence for so long, too long, and before he knew it, he was talking again.

_Damn chatterbox tonight._

"I was gonna come for you," he murmured, barely above a breath, and only prayed she could hear him, because he wasn't sure he could repeat it. "When Rick told me, I just-"

"Stop. Just stop it."

He swallowed hard, gulped on his guilt. "No. No, I wanted to. Rick told me, and before I could do anything, the Governor was there..."

She reached a hand up and laid it on his, turned her face to look at him. "I know, Daryl. I know. You don't have anything to apologize for."

But then he was shaking his head again, couldn't get over how _wrong_ she was. He had _so much_ to be sorry for, _so much_ he had to tell her about, so much he couldn't even tell the others.

He had been so mean to Beth, and then she was gone. And he couldn't find her. And then... Those other guys...

He had led them straight to Rick, Michonne. Carl.

_Carl's screams as the man held him down, fumbled with his belt. The boy's voice breaking in his soul-crushing terror._

_Had he ever seen Carl that scared before?_

_Just a kid._

"You don't know shit, Carol. You don't what I done," he choked out.

She shook her head, turned to look at him. Grasped his face between her palms. Leaned her forehead against his and whispered fiercely.

"You are good, Daryl Dixon, and not for one second do I believe you did anything bad that you meant to, or did anything that you could have not done. Do you understand me? It doesn't matter. I don't care, and you shouldn't either."

Her voice was strong, iron, but soft and tender at the same time.

He just shook his head again.

Her hands ran through his hair and her breath tickled his nose as she breathed deep.

"Then tell me. Tell me what happened, start to finish."

And so, in a voice just above a whisper, he told her. He told her how he had picked on Beth, how just when things were starting to go okay, she was gone. How he had chased her and chased her, but had lost her, just like he knew he would. Just like he always did.

How he had joined up with men who he could have been, who he almost was. How, in his desperate attempt for freedom, he had endangered his family so monumentally, had forced Rick to do one of the most gruesome things he had seen this side of the turn.

How he had had the Governor _in his scope_, but hadn't pulled the trigger.

He hadn't pulled the_ damn trigger_. The one thing that had been his job, his and Michonne's, and he had failed.

She listened, nodded, held his scarred palms in hers and had only moved to brush hands and tears from his face.

And when he was done, when he had laid his soul bare as he could only do with her, she gathered him into her again, laid a soft kiss against his ear and had held him in silence.

It was something they were good at. Not talking, when words weren't needed.

"We've all done things. We've all done horrible, terrible things, but we move on, we get stronger, and before you know it we'll be okay again," she murmured to him, so soft and gentle, her hands moving through his hair and bringing him down to her, keeping him here, in this moment. "We'll be okay again," she choked out, her voice breaking. "We'll come back."

_**We'll**__ come back. We'll._

He pulled her face away from his, waited for her to share, but she didn't. She only sat back, and moved to sit beside him as she wiped her face. Breathed hard, ran a hand through her hair, and pulled her rifle towards her from the ground.

He watched her, wanted nothing more than to ask her. What was half a dozen more words? Surely he had that in him?

Didn't he?

But something about the way her hands shook, the way her eyes stayed stuck on the little girl she hadn't so much as touched since her triumphant return... Something told him she needed to talk on her own time. She needed a minute, an hour, a day.

He understood her. She was grieving something, someone, and a dark part of him knew it had something to do with those girls the universe had finally gifted her with.

And so he watched her, and she watched Judith, and they waited as the moon made its slow arc across the sky.

He would be patient.

**-/-/-/-**


	2. Compromise

**AN #1: Alright. Here we go. :D**

**Disclaimer: I do not work or write for TWD or AMC, nor do I make any profit from my work here.**

**-/-/-/-**

The days passed in a stale blur, days of walking and sleeping in abandoned gas stations and houses, days of trying desperately to jump start cars off of dead batteries.

Days of trying to bring her back.

She wasn't the same, now. She wasn't different, either… But something had changed her. Something had flipped a switch in her mind, and even as her eyes shifted from Tyreese to Rick nervously when she thought no one was looking, he could see what she was thinking.

He'd been watching that little lady like a hawk.

_Like hell was he gonna let her run off and desert._

And part of him knew that was why she wasn't telling, wasn't talking. Because she was planning her great escape, and didn't want to hurt him anymore than she already would.

But it watn't gonna happen.

It had been the fourth night, when she'd finally tried it.

Tyreese hadn't been acting like there was anything wrong, but unlike the rest of the group, Daryl knew what to look for. He saw when the man's hands clenched around his hammer as Glenn and Maggie embraced, how he glared at the fire on the nights Sasha slept beside Bob.

Ty was a good guy, and he would get over it eventually. But Carol was too soft-hearted to see that, too worried about the group's emotional status to see what it would do to them if she left.

And so, on that night, while he was on watch, while she was supposed to be sleeping safe and sound beside Michonne, she stumbled up, grabbed her knife and left everything else, and walked over to say good-bye.

The rational part of him had tried so hard to convince himself she was only coming over because she couldn't sleep. Maybe she had to pee, maybe she was restless and wanted to clean the rifles…

But as she stumbled up, her face grim and her chin already quivering, he knew. He knew and he wasn't sure he could breathe anymore, because what if he couldn't convince her to stay? What if he couldn't make her?

_Then you're gonna follow her until you can bring her back, ya damn fool._

He swallowed past the lump in his throat and ducked his head, shifted his crossbow on his shoulder. Leaned on the rough bark of the pine tree as she came up to him.

He didn't say anything, couldn't quite find the words to convey to her just _why _she couldn't leave.

Her eyes were shining in the light of the waning moon, filled so far to the brim he wondered how she didn't trip over her feet.

She sniffled as she came towards him. She didn't reach out, and neither did he.

_How could she be so selfish? To leave him?_

But one look at her quaking frame reassured him that she wasn't being selfish, didn't have a selfish bone in her body. She was trying her hardest to be self_less, _giving everything she had to make sure their family could stay together in peace.

_But they wouldn't be together without her._

They stared each other down, not moving, not hardly even breathing.

"You ain't leavin'," he finally whispered, trying so hard to keep his anger and his grief out of his words. "You can't… You can't just leave. Not now."

She cocked her head at him, scrubbed at her eyes with her palms, those palms that jingled just lightly with those two bracelets he had brought her back so many months ago. What had been the reason? Had he had a reason?

He couldn't remember. It didn't matter.

The air was heavy and thick, choking him as he tried to articulate why she couldn't go, why she had to go back and lay down and go to sleep and let Tyreese deal with his grief in his own time.

Why couldn't he just say it? Why couldn't he just tell her that he needed her here, with him, from now on, because he knew he just couldn't do it without her?

Why couldn't his sorry ass just _say it_?

He started pacing, but still she wouldn't speak. Wouldn't reach out to him. Wouldn't explain herself.

Just stood there, arms loose at her side, bracelets silent as she took too-deep breaths, trying to calm herself.

He turned, finally, and looked at her face, and he couldn't help himself, couldn't leave her standing there in tears, all alone. Even if he was pissed off.

He stopped and reached for her, but instead of her leaning into him like she usually would, she stepped back, held her arms in front of her.

"No."

He felt like his heart had stopped cold. His stomach dropped, and all he could do was stare at her as she started crying again, this time in earnest.

_No?_

"I can't, Daryl. I can't stay," she choked, her voice shaking as she tried to convince him of something he knew wasn't true.

But all he could do was shake his head at her, the lump in his throat threatening to let loose an onslaught of tears he didn't need.

"It was me, Daryl," she sobbed. "Karen and David, it was me, I don't know if you know that, but it was. It was me."

"Stop it," he ground out, moving towards her again, this time too fast for her to avoid him.

He crushed her to him, wrapped his arms around her so that she could only stand there and listen to him, tried not to revel in her exasperated sigh when she realized she couldn't get free.

"You just need to shut up, for right now," he muttered against her hair, her tears wet against his neck. She nodded once, tentatively, and then pulled her arms up around him again.

"He ain't killed you yet, and he ain't gonna," he continued on.

And this time she scoffed at him, brought up her hands to his hair and breathed deep with lungs that didn't shudder, and he could swear he could feel a little bit of her resolve chip away.

"I'm not afraid he's going to _kill me," _she answered sardonically, clenching his hair in her little hands and threading it through in a way that made his heart ache. "I just think it would be easier for him if I weren't here."

And this time it was his turn to scoff.

"Screw easy," he growled. "He'll get over it. He'll move on like the rest of us do."

She sighed, let her hands drop. "No. No, Daryl, I owe him that. He doesn't deserve to have to look into the face of his girlfriend's…" She paused, struggled with the words, then closed her eyes and spat it out.

"_Murderer. _He shouldn't have to look at me."

He felt the panic rising again as he realized just how serious she was, how dead-set she was on leaving and giving Tyreese his peace.

He swallowed deep.

"You ain't no murderer," he breathed, pulling a wayward strand of grass out of her hair.

She shook her head at him, backed away slowly as she glanced back on the group.

"You have no idea what I've done, Daryl," she whispered, crossing her arms and kicking at the dirt waywardly.

His heart was pounding out of his chest, and hysteria was starting to lace its way into his bloodstream.

_He couldn't do it without her. Not again._

He swallowed hard, then gestured towards camp.

"How long did it take you to forgive Rick?" he spat, louder than he meant to, but loud enough to catch her off guard.

Her eyebrows drew in, and she shook her head slowly. "Rick did the right thing-"

And then he was pissed again, because he wasn't even asking about that, because she _should still be pissed, goddamnit! _The man had banished her, left her for dead, and she was _okay _with it?

But that wasn't what he meant.

"No," he ground out. "For… for Sophia."

He knew he struck a nerve with that one. Struck his own nerve, hell. It still hurt just thinking about that little girl, but saying her name was almost off-limits.

But if it got Carol to change her mind, then it was worth it.

She shrugged, looked away. "Not too long," she admitted. "But it hurt to look at him for a long time."

"And that's what you're going off of? You don't want Ty to hurt when he looks at you?"

Her arms flopped to her sides, and she was mad, he knew she was mad, could feel it rolling off of her in waves that he couldn't quite reflect, could already feel himself absorbing.

"I don't want _anyone _to hurt when they look at me, Daryl!" she whisper screamed through her sobs. "It's too goddamn hard to be around everyone when I know I've hurt them," she cried.

And there it was: guilt. Horrible guilt, regret. Why had he brought it up? Why did he always do this?

"'M sorry," he muttered.

She nodded as she wiped her face, absently trying to stop herself from crying anymore as she tucked her knife in its sheath.

All he wanted to do was hold her and _make her stay._

"You saved us, Carol," he whispered, looking up at her from under his brow. "You saved us, an' I swear, the last thing I feel when I see you is hurt."

She didn't say anything, just looked at him quietly as the tears dribbled over her chin.

"Why'd you have to make this so damn hard?" she murmured, just under her breath, hardly loud enough for him to hear.

"'S payback, for never goin' easy on me all these years," he bantered back, smirking a little.

She chuckled, rolled her shoulders. Closed her eyes and leaned forward.

Daryl held his breath, knew she was thinking it over, contemplating it.

Her hair was wild, crazier than even his, and he knew it was because she refused to even entertain the idea of a haircut. It stuck up in crazy tufts all over the top of her head, curling at the last second like she'd been through a wind tunnel.

Her jacket wasn't thick enough for her to make it through winter, and her cargo pants wouldn't carry her far once the first snow fell. For now she'd be okay, before it got bad, but who knows when she'd be able to find something new?

Out there, alone.

_No one could make it on their own anymore._

She breathed deep, then looked up under hooded eyes.

"I'm going. But I'll come back."

He narrowed his eyes at her, refused to lose on this.

_He wouldn't let her go again._

She looked at him with stony eyes, coldly determined. "I'm going to give him his time to grieve, Daryl. He ain't had a break from me since I told him, and he needs one. And in a month or two… I'll come back." She tried to smile at the end, like it would be okay, but a part of him knew she was only telling him this so that she could leave him not-so-heartbroken.

She had no intentions of coming back.

So he was going to force her to make good on her promise.

And so nodded. "Alright."

She blinked at him, and he smirked. "Jus' lemme go tell Rick, and we'll pack our bags and get on. Take a little vacation."

**-/-/-/-**

**AN #2: Okay, so you know how this was supposed to be a simple two-shot?**

**Yeah. That ain't happening. **


	3. Uncertainty

**AN #1: Yay! I finally got this down on paper and in a document instead of floating around in my brain! That's an accomplishment, I promise. I really want to thank all the reviewers for their support, but also, the sheer amount of followers and favorites this story has picked up is already above my second-most popular fic. So yeah. You guys rock. :]**

**Disclaimer: I do not write, work, or own TWD or AMC. This is all for fun and games (albeit pretty sick fun and games, but whatever).**

**-/-/-/-**

Her heart thundered in her chest, spurting adrenaline into every orifice of her soul until her fingers and toes were burning with the need to _go._

_Daryl was leaving? With her?_

_**For **__her?_

She had hardly blinked before he'd started walking between the trees, picking his way around twigs and overly-crunchy leaves in a way she never quite got over. He was heading towards the others, who were sleeping soundly, completely oblivious to the fact that two of their own were deserting in the night.

_Was she one of their own anymore?_

The others, her family. People she had killed for, time and time again.

But who wanted to look into the eyes of a murderess? Who wanted to see someone they cared about…die? Slowly? Become engulfed by their pain and grief and duty until all that held them together were bullets and the blood not of their own.

_David's warbling cries echoing through the walls softly, reverberating off the rusted metal and echoing in her eardrums._

_Karen's blood-coagulated face, eyes, mouth, and nose covered in the embodiment of her joy, her vigor, her life, her __**soul.**_

_Leaking, seeping, __**flowing **__from her._

_Like water._

"_Please."_

Someone had had to do the hard things. Someone had had to make the tough call.

Someone had had to become the executioner.

_Judge, jury, executioner. _Dale had had it right, back on the farm. Back when she was too weak and didn't have enough love in her bones left to care for anyone but the man who couldn't care for himself.

What she had done, what she had become… wasn't _them._ It wasn't what _they _were.

And, sure, Rick had killed. Rick had killed so many times, arguably more than she herself, at least before Terminus. And not one of those deaths did she begrudge him.

But the group could still love him. He was the leader. He got shit done, and he wouldn't have any questions answered.

But where Rick was reactive, she had been proactive. Where Rick had scrabbled at hope with torn and bloody fingernails, she had let it soar, let it free to make a home in someone else's breast.

She didn't need hope anymore. Didn't _want _hope.

She ran a timid hand through her hair as Daryl whispered with Rick. The light of the fire danced through the trees, and briefly Carol remembered the blaze she had created to save Carl and Michonne. To save her family.

She couldn't let herself jinx it. She had to leave, because Judith _had _to live.

She wasn't sure she could be a mother anymore. Wasn't sure she could make good on her promise, the one she had made to Lori all those months ago at the quarry.

"_He's as good as mine."_

"_I'd love her like my own."_

Judith and Carl were her responsibilities, but after Sophia…

After her girls…

She couldn't. She would let Ty, or Michonne, take over that role.

There was something wrong with her, something evil and dark and poisoned deep inside of her, she knew it. Something that wouldn't let her keep her children alive. Something that got her babies killed, and she'd be damned if something were to happen to the only two she had left.

So she'd go. Another reason to add to the list.

She had to. She _had to._

A part of her hated that Daryl was coming with her. Hated that he felt obligated to follow her because of some guilt of not getting to her before everything went to hell.

Guilt over letting Hershel die. Of losing Beth. Of almost witnessing Carl – _her boy – _violated in the worst sort of ways.

_He'll be okay._

_He has Michonne now._

Daryl was just guilty. He needed something to atone with, and that something was her.

Why hadn't she slunk away while one of the newcomers were on watch? When no one would have even _tried _to stop her?

Why had she waited for him?

She knew why, of course. Wasn't so jaded and veiled off to her own emotions that she couldn't see. She'd known for longer than she'd like to admit.

But it was too painful, now. Too hard.

She'd be gone, soon, and that was one cross she refused to bear.

She couldn't leave him if she loved him.

Eventually, he meandered back over, a full pack and her jacket in one hand. He quirked his lips as she slipped the garment on, then handed her her rifle.

He glanced at her, once, silently asking if she really wanted to do this. If she really needed to.

And so she had blinked, her eyes still stinging from the tears she hadn't wanted to shed. She swallowed, nodded.

So hoped he would turn around and let her go alone, so prayed he would stay where he was protected and would be safe.

But he hadn't. Had simply nodded for her to lead, and then had fallen into step behind her.

She closed her eyes for a second, just barely for a breath, but it was enough. Seeing those images swimming, it was enough.

She had to.

So she did.

And they were off.

**-/-/-/-**

She wasn't sure, exactly, when the silence became uncomfortable. When the monotonous grounding of leaves beneath boots began to grate on her nerves, when the soft huffs of breath coming from the man behind her became less of a comfort and more of a reminder.

_She'd dragged him out here._

_He wasn't safe._

_Why had she let him?_

She didn't know. She really didn't.

She didn't know a lot of things. She didn't know if Ty had really forgiven her, in his heart. She didn't know if Daryl understood what she had done, why she had done it. She didn't know if she could have saved Mika, or if Lizzie could have been helped.

She didn't know if her self-defense classes had been the final push for her poor girl.

But she did know she couldn't possibly let herself forget. Not like she had tried to do with Sophia.

Those girls would be her legacy. All three of them, they would follow her and stay tucked into the softest corners of her memory, where she could recall them whenever she needed to remember why the hard choices were often the right ones.

And so, as some sick, sadistic force was controlling her legs, she found herself going back the way she came with Ty.

She would show him what she had done, what she had been forced to do to save Judith. She would show him, fill in the blanks, and watch as the horror and disgust flooded his gaze like it had hers that day, like it had Tyreese.

Maybe then, he would deem himself absolved. Maybe then, he would understand, he would see what she was. Maybe she would finally be able to scare him, so that he would go back to their family, where he was _loved, _where he was depended on, where Carl looked at him like the sun itself rose and set upon his shoulders.

Maybe then, he would see.

And even as she told herself that that was what she wanted, even as she shouldered her gun and grunted from the weight of it, she felt him near.

She felt him come close – _too close, not close enough – _and ease his arm over her shoulder.

And all she wanted to do was cry.

**-/-/-/-**

**AN #2: Lots of angst to come… I'm thinking this will be under ten chapters. I'm aiming for eight, so we'll see.**

**Thank you so much for reading! Feel free to drop me a line if you have the time, reviews and constructive criticism is more than welcome! : )**


	4. Careful

**AN #1: So this took way too long to post, and I'm sorry. I'm having trouble finding motivation for this story… But I think I may have finally hit my stride with this chapter. : )**

**Disclaimer: I do not own, write for, or work for AMC or TWD.**

**-/-/-/-**

They meandered in silence for longer than she wanted to admit, his arm around her shoulders and hers around his waist.

He never asked where they were going, so she never told.

The smoke tainted the air, leaving it bitter and angry, and she couldn't help but think of her sweet girl who had been too smart for her own good.

Daryl had been watching herm and part of her suspected that she wasn't masking her emotions as well as she hoped, because he started talking, that soft, gravelly tone entirely encompassing her.

"B'fore, me an' Beth found a house, a real beat up, abandoned shack." He turned to look at her, and she gave him a soft half-smile for encouragement.

He smirked. "Girl had her heart set on getting drunk, since Hershel had been such a hardass about the whole thing."

She chuckled at that, as did he. The mental picture of sweet, innocent Beth drunk and stumbling was ridiculously comical.

But he carried on with his story. "Anyway, we found this shed behind the house, filled with moonshine."

"Oh, no," she murmured, still smiling, expecting a not-so-good ending to this story.

He nodded, the corner of his lip twitching as he restrained a grin. "Yeah. We got so piss-ass drunk, we burned the whole place down."

And then she really did laugh. "No," she managed between gasps. "No, you didn't!"

He nodded, laughed a little himself. "Yeah, we did. Goddamn idiots. Drew every walker a mile round."

She shook her head, remembering that tall pillar of smoke that they had observed from the pecan grove.

"We saw the smoke," she muttered, thinking back on the charred walkers that had attacked, how her girls had taken them out like well-oiled machines. "From the house we were staying in."

There was a beat of silence. Then:

"That where we're going now? That house?"

She nodded, her throat suddenly dry and her eyes not so.

He rubbed her arm in acknowledgement, and they fell back again into that comfortable silence.

**-/-/-/-**

They rested after that, and she let him sleep first, a part of her brain still telling her that after she told him, she could convince him to go back without her. And this way, he could sleep easy, knowing there was someone looking out for him.

She wouldn't have his back when he returned, she hoped.

Her hands tightened around the rifle as the setting sun called forth the few surviving mosquitoes. The plant life was starting to die from the cold, tall oaks and elms losing their leaves like snow around her.

She swallowed again, let her head hang back for just a second.

"Mama."

She gulped. Closed her eyes. Wouldn't look.

"Mama, look at me."

She shook her head, trying to rid the small, beautiful voice.

_They didn't call her Miss Carol anymore._

"Mama, _please._"

Her hands shook. She put down the rifle, knew from experience what happened when she saw her undead daughter before her eyes while she was holding her gun.

"Mama, it _hurts_."

It was Sophia today. Sometimes it was Mika, other Lizzie. On bad days, it was Judith.

On worse, all four.

"Go away," she groaned, eyes still shut.

She wouldn't look. She wouldn't.

"That fire is still burning."

She shook her head again, her arms crossed, hands kneading her flesh.

"Those people are still burning."

Her breaths started to shallow and quicken, and she started to feel herself panic as she realized they weren't going to leave until she looked.

Never would.

"I didn't hurt her brains… So why did you hurt mine?"

Her heart was pounding in her throat, her pulse was ascending to the clouds. She had to end it, she had to look, or she would black out.

Always when she was alone, or on watch. When survival depended solely on her.

She had to. She had to.

"My little girl… You were supposed to be her mommy for me, Carol. Where is she? Why don't you have her?"

_I'm sorry._

"My precious little girl… My baby boy… They were yours. And you left them."

_I can't._

"They don't have a mama anymore."

_I know._

"Because of _you."_

_I know._

"What's wrong with you?"

_I'm poisoned._

"Why couldn't you save me?"

_I'm weak._

"You can't save them."

_I will._

"You're going to lose them, just like the other."

_I won't._

"You're going to fail me, just like you did Ryan."

_No._

"It's already over."

_It never is._

"Face me.

"Look at me."

"Look at your failure."

"Look at what you've done."

Her lids lifted lazily, blue meeting undead as a hiss bubbled forth from the walker's decaying vocal chords.

**-/-/-/-**

It took her all of half a second to pull out her bowie knife and put it through the thing's eye.

Her heart was pounding, her heart rate too high to be safe, but one look at Daryl found him sitting up, wide eyed and bleary as he watched her trying to pull herself and her knife from the walker's skull.

She wouldn't look at him. Wouldn't look and see the worry she had seen in Tyreese's that first time, that sickening _pity _that they had all laid on Rick in his crazy days after Lori's passing.

She didn't want his pity. She didn't want his sympathy.

But when she looked at him again after pulling herself straight and retrieving her forgotten gun, he wasn't looking at her with pity. He wasn't looking at her with fear.

He just looked…sad. Confused.

He came forward, pulled her to him into a tight hold that she couldn't have gotten out of if she wanted to.

"Gotta be more careful," he murmured into her neck, his voice crackly and slow.

She hugged him back, fought back the tears brimming beneath the surface. Tried not to think of what he must have thought, awakening to her barely coming out of the haze in time to save their lives.

_Too close._

He shook in her arms. She had truly, really, scared him this time.

"Nine lives, remember?" she choked out.

He managed a sad little chuckle. "Yeah. Nine lives."

They stayed like that for a couple beats more, just holding onto each other, before turning and going on their way, arms around each other, supporting each other like they always would.

**-/-/-/-**

**AN #2: Yay! I hope y'all liked it, drop me a line if you have a chance! Thank you for reading. :) Next chapter will be back to Daryl's POV.**


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